Rob, great post. I have shared with many, yes, Clinton is an imperfect candidate. But, she gets more than her share of criticism, fair and unfair. The dilemma is current voters do not know the difference. There are many smear campaigns from the 1990s that have been and will be brought up, almost all of them discredited, so they should be taken with a grain of salt when heard.

Benghazi is more recent and it has long ago (after eight committees and $5 million in costs) stopped being a pursuit of truth and has been kept alive to smear Clinton. This has been obvious, but speaker of the house wannabe, Kevin McCarthy killed his campaign, when he spoke this truth on a conservative talk show last fall. Benghazi was put to bed two months afterward in 2012 when a non-partisan task force under Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullens and Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering completed their assessment, yet were not called to testify for nine months by a congressional committee charged with looking into this.

With that said, I do believe legitimate questions remain about her use of an email server. So, I don’t put these two issues in the same category. She may come out unscathed once the review is complete, but it feeds the narrative that has been hounding her. What she needs to do more of speak how she did earlier this week on her global experience as a differentiator. Her winning would be hugely helpful to addressing a global problem of maltreatment of women and girls which would pay dividends as not only the right thing to do, but grow the economies of places where women are treated as possessions instead of intellectual capital.

Finally, as her husband’s infidelities are likely to be paraded, Trump should be advised on two fronts. If you bring up Bill, his entire record is now fair game – a president who balanced the budget, had the most jobs created on his watch at 22.8 million than any other president, exceeding Ronald Reagan’s best GOP total by 6.7 million jobs and witnessed a great economic growth period. And, you saw a married couple who chose to remain married, when 50% of marriages fail, a decision which is entirely personal. That should get her brownie points from the evangelical crowd by itself, when Trump has a different kind of marital history.

She is not out of the woods, as Bernie could still carry the remaining states. The key for Dems is to support their candidate as the alternative is a thin-skinned, bigoted and narcissistic candidate who is already endangering our planet with his comments. Sorry for the soapbox, Keith

Thank you Keith. It’s good to hear from you. I agree with you that questions remain regarding Hillary’s use of the email server. My point with this is that whatever the truth is the irrational self righteousness of her accusers does not comport with their passive acceptance of the same, or even worse behavior from their own leadership. When Republicans can express as much outrage over the lies that got us into Iraq they might gain the credibility they need to point their fingers at Democrats. As it is, whatever the truth about her use of the servers, her accusers have zero interest in ethics or accountability. In an ethical world everyone is held accountable regardless of political party. In the insane world of the conservative ideologue the new normal is a shameless double standard that our media lacks the courage to question.

Very well said. The biggest conspiracy in America is being investigated by the New York AG on Exxon- Mobil ‘s alleged misrepresentation to its investors and shareholders on the impact of climate change on its business. Congress has not paid any attention to that. As you recall, it took “60 Minutes” to break the fraud in the tobacco industry that nicotine was not addictive, when not only they knew it was they laced it more for cigarette sales. Congress let the CEOs off the hook until the story broke that they had lied.

Thank you for clarifying my point, Keith. Fake outrage adds more poison to the well of public debate. One of our problems with this nation’s media is that it treats naked hypocrisy as if it is a valid political point of view. If there is evidence Hillary committed a crime, fine. But thus far it’s a smear campaign and we’ve seen it all before. Selective outrage is insulting to the men and women that we honored on Memorial Day. These men and women didn’t got to war to make the world safe for a political party lead by a cadre of rich and selfish hypocrites. They went to war to protect our Democracy and the premise that all people are equal before the law. All people. That includes Republicans. And it includes a former President who has yet to be held accountable for the lies that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Rob, a good example is the VA fiasco. Two months before Phoenix, a bipartisan bill put forth by John McCain and Bernie Sanders to improve the VA was voted down at a cost of $64 Billion – so our vets had a price limit. Two months later, the lines at the VA in Phoenix became news and Congress was shocked that our president let this happen (two months). In the summer, Congress passed a bill for $16 Billion of funding, 1/4 of what was initially requested based on need. Troubles still remain and Congress says how could you let this happen? The veterans’ groups are furious with Congress for not doing what is necessary.

So, when I see jingoistic flag waving by a certain party, I think of these two votes and how they screwed our veterans. In fairness, both parties are to blame as these problems have festered for years, but one party goes out if its way to beat on its chest. Your point abut putting our troops in harms’ way over false intelligence is another example. This was the real crime and it should be noted that someone who worked for Karl Rove and Dick Cheney wound up in jail for outing a CIA agent, whose husband’s recon of WMD trail found nothing and his intel was misused in support of the mission to invade For readers, Google Valerie Plame and Scooter Libby. There was a movie about this starring Naomi Watts. Keith

If the Republican Party were a person he would be the most malignant pathological narcissists on the planet. Here are the similarities between the GOP and malignant narcissism:

They scapegoat and are incapable of the insight or willingness to accept responsibility for anything they do. Whatever the problem, it is always someone else’s fault.

Genuine religious, moral, or other values play no part in their lives. They have no empathy for others and are capable of violence. Under older psychological terminology, they fall into the category of psychopath or sociopath, but unlike the typical psychopath, their behavior is masked by a superficial social facade.

A sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others
A disregard for obligations, no sense of responsibility, in matters of little and great import.

They are habitual liars. They seem incapable of either knowing or telling the truth about anything.

This pathological sense of entitlement to take power without regard for its function has dominated the political discourse in this nation for decades.

Now we are witnessing their accommodation of Donald Trump which tells us that these men and women who claim to represent conservative values have no values at all. I feel sorry for their rank and file supporters. They amount to little more than propagandized pawns in a game that they are not rich enough to play; a game that they are meant to lose.

I take it you’re not a FOX news fan? My sister and her boyfriend never miss a minute of FOX news….and record every single Bill O’Reilly hour. My sister voted for “G.W.” ….and this is hard to admit….”because she thought he was cute.”
Do you think either one of them gives a shit about starving children, the homeless or veterans? NOPE. It’s all about them….just like with so many others.

Laurel your sister sounds like my brother. I really don’t talk to him anymore because all he wants to do is tell me how wrong I am to be a Democrat. He doesn’t ask about my life, etc. It’s only his views. I’ve told him we will never agree, but he doesn’t care, he just likes to hear the sound of his own voice. He even went so far as to tell his daughter (who’s voting for the first time) that she had to vote for Trump! WTF! Who does that? I told her she can vote for whoever she wants, and it’s none of her dad’s business. She needs a car, and her dad told her if she doesn’t vote for Trump that she can’t get a another car. Her mom died when she was six, so he’s all she’s got. It makes me sad because I live 300 miles away, and we are really close. Voting for GW because she thought he was cute? Wow, I would be embarrassed to admit that to anyone.

Oh, she doesn’t care. She and her boyfriend blame Obama for the shit-hole Bush dug for us. They think anybody who doesn’t think like them are idiots. I just let them rave on. You can’t fix stupid.
Telling somebody they “have” to vote for somebody? Nope. This is the United States of America. NOBODY tells me who to vote for….and neither should your brother.

I met a lot of “pieces of work”…but being subservient to Loser, I had to act like an empty-headed flower pot.
Bill was actually taller than Loser (which was another reason Loser hated him.) LOL
Now? I would give him a go!

She’s the Queen of pathological narcissists and the whole idea that the ‘future’ is not our problem. She gives them a shallow philosophy that justifies their pathological contempt for life and the rights of other people.

Hey, as I enjoyed chatting to you yesterday and I think we’re very much on the same page I’ve nominated you for the Leibster award. Of course you don’t have to participate, there’s no obligation, but I wanted to nominate you as I really like what you’re doing here with your blog so want to offer my support. https://bodyelectricweb.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/leibster-re-nomination/

Great post Rob. I couldn’t agree with you more. I hope America wakes up before it’s too late. The right wing nuts have been going after Hillary for 30 years. Trump is nothing more than a loud mouth boor. But he’s very dangerous as his supporters act out the crap he’s spewing on a daily basis. I hope like hell he doesn’t get elected.

I’m a Bernie supporter but if Hillary is the nominee I have an obligation to vote for her and then politically to make her do the job we hired her to do. It would be an act of national suicide to let what is little more than a party of political cry baby’s retain control of our country. Thank you for your comment…we really need to be able to talk to each other. Some thing else I can no longer suffer in silence is this media induced split that has us behaving as if we live in two separate nations. Doesn’t anyone see how toxic the red/blue split is to our system of government?

I’m a Bernie supporter as well. I’m hoping for a good outcome come November. I’m not ready for my life to change drastically under a Trump administration. So many things keep coming to light about Trump, and people seem to just think it’s okay. It’s not okay. When North Korea thinks Trump would be good for our country, we’re pretty much screwed. It’s a shame that the Republicans couldn’t come up with anyone better. What does that say about their party? I think as Americans we all want them same thing. Good jobs, good schools and safe water to drink and air to breathe. Anyone who wants to get rid of the EPA and similar agencies is completely nuts in my book. We have water safety issues all over the country, and old orange hair is worried about building a stupid wall. He has no real plan, and sounds like a complete idiot, yet people flock to him. I don’t get it. I just hope that everyone who can, comes out to vote in November, because it could literally be a life or death situation.